'The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing' by Melissa Bank

Before Match.com, just as "Sex and the City" was making a splash, and before bookstores were embattled, "The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing" arrived on the scene. In a series of linked stories published in 1999, young women could see themselves as they negotiated friendship, romance and one of the most dangerous places of all: the workplace. At the heart of these stories is Jane Rosenal, the clever and slightly ironic young woman trying to make her way in the world and guide readers through the sticky marsh of life.

A new edition of the book recently published attests that the book has held up since it first appeared. And the Tribune can claim a bit part in Melissa Bank's success: She won the Tribune's Nelson Algren Short Story Award in 1993.